Posted on May 27, 2019
Two projects to dredge waterways on Virginia’s Eastern Shore are receiving $385,000 in state money to pay for preliminary work required before actual dredging can begin — including surveys, permitting and the like.
One project is Kings Creek in Northampton; the second is a section of state waterway adjacent to a recently dredged federal channel in Quinby Creek, in Accomack.
The Virginia Port Authority met May 21 to determine the allocations for the first year of the Waterways Maintenance Fund grant awards.
Northampton was awarded $197,000 for the Kings Creek project and Accomack was awarded $188,000, according to an email from John Joeckel, chairman of the Eastern Shore Navigable Waterways Committee.
The fund resulted from legislation developed by the Eastern Shore Navigable Waterways Committee, the Accomack-Northampton Planning District Commission and Sen. Lynwood Lewis and Delegate Rob Bloxom,
The legislation was approved by the General Assembly and signed by Gov. Ralph Northam last year.
The money does not require a local match, according to Joeckel.
“The intent is to complete these pre-dredging activities prior to July 1, 2020,” he said.
A second round of grants from the fund begins in March 2020.
“It is envisioned at that time to submit applications to actually commence dredging of Quinby and Kings Creek in the July 2020 to July 2021 time frame,” Joeckel said.
There is a $1.34 million cap on total annual awards from the fund.
Applications for the grants this year totaled around $10.5 million worth of projects, according to Joeckel, who said awards were given “only for the pre-dredging engineering work since actual dredging costs would have significantly exceeded the cap limit.”
Other areas that received grant awards in the first round included Gloucester and Mathews.
“Over the decades these state waterways are shoaling, where many of them are (now) three feet or less mean low water draft,” Joeckel said at the time.
Virginia is ranked eighth of all states in total shoreline miles — many of which are on the Eastern Shore — yet the state until now did not have a state funding mechanism to maintain the navigable depth of state waterways, according to a letter Joeckel sent to the Accomack County Board of Supervisors and the Northampton County Board of Supervisors along with the proposed resolution.
The bi-county Navigable Waterways Committee in 2016 produced a report that found about 69 percent of the region’s federal waterways do not currently meet authorized depths — and 10 have sections with less than two feet of water at mean low water, the report found.
Additionally, almost half — five out of 12 — of non-federal waterways on the coast of Virginia connecting waters have sections with no more than three feet of water at mean low water, as well as a third of non-federal waterways that are not connecting waters to the waterway on the coast of Virginia, it concluded.
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Source: delmarvanow.com
